Foscavir News

THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2016 – A significant number of people with HIV have strains of the AIDS-causing virus that are resistant to both older and newer drugs, researchers report. The researchers looked at 712 HIV patients worldwide whose infection was not controlled by antiretroviral drugs. They found that 16 percent of patients whose infection was resistant to modern drugs had HIV mutations linked with resistance to older drugs called thymidine analogues. Among patients whose HIV had this mutation, 80 percent were also resistant to tenofovir, the main drug in most modern HIV treatment and prevention programs, the researchers reported. The findings were published in the Nov. 30 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. "We were very surprised to see that so many people were resistant to both drugs, as we didn't think this was possible," study lead author Ravi Gupta, of University ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 26, 2016 – HIV patients who've been treated with antiretroviral drugs still have the AIDS-causing virus in their tissues, a new study suggests. Treatment with antiretrovirals eliminates detectable levels of HIV in the blood and controls the disease. But the new findings suggest that HIV in the tissues may not cause AIDS but could contribute to the development of unrelated conditions, such as cancer and heart disease, according to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers. "Looking in tissues of treated HIV patients, we found that HIV in some tissues did not appear to be affected by antiretrovirals," said study senior author Dr. Michael McGrath. "Notably we saw no evidence of drug resistance, which we would have seen if the virus had been exposed to medications," said McGrath. He is UCSF professor of laboratory medicine at the AIDS and Cancer ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 27, 2016 – Even when blood tests of HIV patients on antiretroviral drugs show no sign of the AIDS-causing virus, it can still be replicating in lymphoid tissue, researchers report. The study offers important new insight into how HIV persists in the body despite treatment with the powerful drugs, according to the team of international researchers led by Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. To reach their finding, they examined viral sequences in samples of lymph node and blood cells from three HIV-infected patients who had no detectable virus in their blood. And what they found was that a viral reservoir in lymphoid tissue, which scientists believed held long-lived infected cells in a resting state, was being constantly replenished with infected cells. "The challenge is to deliver drugs at clinically effective concentrations to where the ... Read more

MONDAY, Oct. 12, 2015 – Not only does effective HIV therapy thwart the AIDS-causing virus, it may also reduce the risk for hepatitis B infection, a new study says. "What this means to us is that effective HIV therapy appears to restore an impairment in the immune response that protects someone with HIV from acquiring hepatitis B infection," study senior author Dr. Chloe Thio, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a university news release. The study, published in the October issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, involved 2,400 gay and bisexual men who were enrolled in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study. Researchers found that the men successfully treated with HIV therapy had the same risk for hepatitis B infection as the men who did not have HIV. Hepatitis B is a virus that can damage the liver. The study showed HIV-positive men on HIV therapy ... Read more

THURSDAY, Sept. 24, 2015 – Almost half of American adults infected with HIV don't take medications that can prevent them from developing AIDS, a new government report shows. The statistics, based on data gathered from 2007 to 2012, are a few years out of date, so it's not clear whether the situation has changed. Still, the report – an analysis of people aged 18 to 59 – suggests a widespread lack of recommended care. "Based on what we know nowadays, everyone who's HIV-positive should be on therapy," said Dr. Carlos del Rio, co-director of the Center for AIDS Research at Emory University, in Atlanta. "This highlights the challenges we have ahead because we have such an unequal epidemic." The report, authored by Dr. Joseph Woodring of the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, estimated the prevalence of HIV infection based on a survey of more than 10,000 people. The survey found ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, July 1, 2015 – Even after the advent of powerful medications for suppressing HIV, a new study finds that more than one-third of people in San Francisco who were diagnosed with an AIDS-related infection died within five years. "The main cause of mortality arises from people stopping treatment entirely," said Dr. Robert Grant, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who reviewed the findings but was not involved in the research. When HIV treatment lapses, so-called "opportunistic" infections and illnesses can arise, posing a real threat to patients' health, he explained. The bottom line, according to Grant, is that there is still "a long way to go" in prolonging the lives of Americans with HIV/AIDS. The new study was led by Dr. Sandra Schwarcz, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. She and her ... Read more

THURSDAY, June 25, 2015 – It's unlikely that a single vaccine would ever enable the body to neutralize the HIV virus, but a sequence of immunizations might hold the key, a new mouse study suggests. The immune system could be guided in a series of steps to develop a special type of HIV-fighting antibody, a team of researchers said. Each immunization would be customized for specific stages of the immune system's response to the virus. In the end, the series of shots would result in the production of broadly neutralizing antibodies capable of fighting HIV, the authors said. "As HIV mutates in a patient, the immune system continually adapts. In some patients, this process produces broadly neutralizing antibodies, which are unusual antibodies that can bind to and neutralize a wide range of globally occurring HIV variants. These are the antibodies we want to try to elicit with a vaccine," ... Read more